I have stated these two cases, not by way of begging the question as to the superiority in kind of Homer’s testimony, but to show how important that question is; and in how many instances the history of the heroic age must be rewritten, if we adopt the principle, that Homer ought to be received as an original witness, contemporary with the manners, nay, perhaps, even with some of the persons he describes, and subject only to such deductions as other original witnesses are liable to suffer: whereas the later traditions rest only upon hearsay; so much so, that they can hardly be called evidence, and should never be opposed, on their own credit, to the testimony of Homer. In bringing this discussion to a close, I will quote a passage respecting Homer, from the Earl of Aberdeen’s _Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture_, which, I think, expresses with great truth and simplicity the ground of Homer’s general claim to authority, subject, of course, to any question respecting the genuineness of the received text: In treating of an age far removed from the approach of regular history, it is fortunate that we are furnished with a guide so unerring as Homer, whose general accuracy of observation, and minuteness of description, are such as to afford a copious source of information respecting almost everything connected with the times in which he composed his work: and who, being nearly contemporary with the events which he relates, and, indeed, with the earliest matter for record in Greece, cannot fall into mistakes and anachronisms in arts, or manners, or government, as he might have done had he lived at a more advanced and refined period[120]. It was said of a certain Dorotheus, that he spent his whole life in endeavours to elucidate the meaning of the Homeric word κλισίη. Such a disproportion between labour and its aim is somewhat startling; yet it is hardly too much to say, that no exertion spent upon any of the great classics of the world, and attended with any amount of real result, is really thrown away. It is better to write one word upon the rock, than a thousand on the water or the sand: better to remove a single stray stone out of the path that mounts the hill of true culture, than to hew out miles of devious tracks, which mislead and bewilder us when we travel them, and make us more than content if we are fortunate enough to find, when we emerge out of their windings, that we have simply returned to the point in our age, from which, in sanguine youth, we set out.